Hello everybody, welcome back to a brand new episode of the casual criminalist, a podcast,

a YouTube channel, a show where criminals write down their crimes, all of these three things.

This is a, I just started recording this episode, got about 20 minutes in and then realized

that my microphone was off. So the first three pages of this, I'm intimately familiar with.

Normally in this show what happens is Callum writes me a script, I will read the script,

and then Jen afterwards will, she's our editor, she puts in the music, she puts in the images,

if you're watching this show, if you are watching this show on YouTube, please do use their like

button if you're listening to this show as a podcast, consider leaving a review, that would be

amazing. Yeah, normally what happens is Callum writes this for me, and I cold read it, I've never

read it before, but as I just said, I'm super familiar with the first three pages. I didn't really

get to any of the solution parts because this is a super big episode today, but yeah, if it sounds

like I've read it before, that's because I have. What is this all about? It's up in smoke, the

Soda Children's disappearance, and now because I've read the first three pages, I can say,

oh, was it a disappearance or was it? Anyway, let's just jump in, this is the casual criminalist.

On Christmas Eve, 1945, the Soda family of Fayetteville, West Virginia, and the last time I recorded

it, I made a joke about not being able to pronounce Fayetteville, but unlike that joke's now

stale, it's like it's not because no one's heard it, because the microphone wasn't on.

I need to get better at my job. We're getting ready to turn in for the night. That was no mean

feat for the parents, Georgian Jenny, because they had a large family, 10 children, one of whom was

fully grown and off with the US Army. After dinner, 17-year-old Marion handed out presents to the

little kids from the dime store where she worked. Yeah, 10 kids. I have one kid, now I've got another

kid on the way, and I'm like 10 kids. I mean, I like being a dad, but 10 kids. Are you actually

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